An international event at an international school

This was good practice for when we go to India in February!

If you've been reading the blog, you already know that I do a lot of tutoring for students from the international schools here. Specifically, my students all come from one particular school called Nido de Aguilas, thanks to the parent coordinator there who sent out my tutoring info to all the parents.

This past week, I started hearing from all the students about a big festival coming up on Saturday. I learned that it is an annual event where students and families host a booth to represent their home country with food and decorations, and there is a central stage for cultural performances. Nido has students from a HUGE range of countries, so that means lots of booths and cool displays. One of the families I tutor for was nice enough to invite Caroline and me to catch a ride with them, so off we went!

We didn't know entirely what to expect, but hopefully the photos and explanations below can give you a feel for it.

The Chilean booth seemed very similar to the displays we had seen at Fondas on 18 Septiembre, their independence day

We didn't get a good count, but there were at least 20 different countries represented, and I think maybe even more than 30. In addition to all the expected nations, we also got to see a sample of food and culture from some places we didn't know so much about: South Africa, Malaysia, Taiwan, Venezuela, and more!

The whole "production values" of the event was extremely high, which wasn't too surprising because the families are mostly very upper class and the school caters to that. The event did cost an entry fee plus tickets to buy food, so I guess that money helps them put on such a high quality event. All the booths had wonderful decorations, and the event was organized and run very smoothly (often you can't say that for things here!).

The performances were great too:

Two students as part of an arabian-style dance. These wing things were spectacular, though it's sort of hard to appreciate them from the photo.

This looked like a chinese dragon to me, though I didn't see the start so I can't say for sure what culture it represents. I think it would be very uncomfortable to be the rear end of this dragon.

And of course, the Korean students did a Gangnam Style dance. This was by far the most popular performance of the day, so we couldn't get very close.

I wonder if the Korean kids are sick of this song, or if it is still a really cool feeling for them to have a world-wide pop hit that people know and get excited for?

The people were nice, the weather was great, and we had a very fun time at this event. There are more pictures from it that I will post later.

I know you are all dying to know what they had at the USA booth. I'll tell about it in a future post. For now, leave a comment with your best guess about what foods the Americans had to represent the good ol' US of A.